ESL Saigon

Top 15 uses of phonemic chart

I have been teaching English in Vietnam since 2008 but just a few times I have used phonemic chart in classroom. For some reasons, Vietnamese learners find it very difficult to comprehend, unnecessary to be learned, and its use in classroom results in a boring lesson.

Here are 15 uses of the phonemic chart:

Phonemic chart used with individual sounds

Phonemic chart can help students to identify new sounds.

Phonemic chart can accompany students’ work on the muscular sensations of each sound.

Phonemic chart can pinpoint areas of difficulty for your students.

You can use phonemic chart with recognition/discrimination activities such as same or different activity.

Phonemic chart can be used for highlighting plural endings, past tenses, etc.

Phonemic chart can be used for prompting students to self-correct by pointing to the chart.

Phonemic chart can accompany students’ collections of their own words for each sound.

Phonemic chart used with words

Phonemic chart can be used with words to enable students to record the pronunciation of words accurately and reliably.

Phonemic chart promotes self-help in using dictionary.

Phonemic chart used with connecting speech

Phonemic chart can be used to highlight the linking sounds that join words together.

Phonemic chart can be used to highlight the changes to consonants that happen in assimilation.

Phonemic chart can be used to draw attention to the effects of weak forms on vowel sounds.

Phonemic chart used in general

Phonemic chart can be used to change the focus of a lesson.

Phonemic chart can be used to bring phonology alive visually.

Phonemic chart can be used to symbolize the fact that the sounds of English are not infinite (many learners think that there are an infinite number of sounds in English language) but can be clearly codified and standardized.

Having a phonemic chart in every classroom will probably help students to get familiar with it. As a teacher, you can highlight the sounds (e.g. color in) that are particularly difficult for your students. You or your students can make posters for individual sounds containing keywords with pictures, mouth diagrams, hints on making the sound, etc.